Pakistan bans Facebook

May. 20, 2010 12:00 AMLos Angeles Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - It was a Facebook campaign meant to make a stand for free speech. But in Pakistan, a contest encouraging users of the social-networking site to submit caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed has been viewed as blasphemous, prompting a court-ordered nationwide ban on the website Wednesday.

A court in Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, ordered the government to ensure that the country's Internet service providers were blocking access to Facebook, the world's most popular social-networking website.

The ruling was triggered by the campaign, which asked users to post images of Islam's founder on a page called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!"

The campaign was aimed at expressing solidarity with the creators of the Comedy Central television show "South Park," which recently drew the ire of a radical Muslim group for depicting Mohammed in a bear suit in an episode.